# As I've said before, I use music to help me sleep - not any music but minimal ambient, repeating patterns, monotonous drones, that kind of thing. It's like white noise, background sounds to kill the silence.
It's not that the music lulls you to sleep but that it's actually a distraction. The noise fills the emptiness and gives the mind something to focus on, thus preventing the subconscious voice from taking over. It is the subconscious voice, chattering about anything and everything, that stops you from sleeping.
The more I read up on T'ai Chi the more I like the ideas behind it. It is full body meditation and I think that's why the Qigong breathing exercise added to the end of my normal session worked so well. 1
At first glance, meditation seems to be concerned with just silencing the mind, whereas T'ai Chi teaches us to occupy the mind so how can it be "full body" meditation?
When you consider it further, meditation is actually using the distraction method - usually by focusing on your breath. By always returning to breath you are filling your mind with the thought, feeling and sensation of that regular pattern. You are trying to use this focus to deny the subconscious voice your attention.
T'ai Chi is the ultimate distraction. It's not just about breathing (although that is a part of it) but also filling your mind with a mental image of your actions and not trying to empty it. You load your thoughts with how your body feels, how it moves and flows, where it ends and where the world beyond begins.
The greater the distraction the harder for the subconscious voice to push through, hence why some recite a mantra to aid their meditation - it is an extra layer to occupy the mind and prevent rogue thoughts from manifesting.
A literal translation of mantra would be "instrument of thought" but it has also been interpreted as "by the repetition of which the mind becomes free of external experiences" - a distraction!
It is this oneness of mind and body that attracts me so deeply.
- In fact, last night I did a full 10 minute session as a replacement for my seated meditation. ↩
@colinwalker not 100% related, but when I code late at night I tend to listen to "Dronezone” radio - somafm.com/dronezone... - it really puts me in a good place to be able to concentrate and, importantly, fall asleep if it was a late night.
I used to listen to upbeat music, to keep awake… but then… I couldn't fall asleep as my mind couldn't slow down.
@vincent Yep, same principle - it’s distraction allowing you to focus on what you need to do.
Thanks for the link ?
Daniel Goldsmith writes about trying to reconcile two seemingly incompatible definitions of meditation: the Stoic and Buddhist varieties. He says:
This is at odds with the understanding of "mindfulness" meditation where involuntary thoughts (propatheiai) are acknowledged for what they are but then put aside, maybe for later consideration. A waste in Daniel's view coming from a practice where those thoughts are to be examined. It's an interesting position and this isn't so much an answer but me thinking things through for myself. The word meditation itself is broad in meaning, perhaps misleading as a concept when examined in this manner, and trying to compound the two sides on that basis alone is to do yourself an injustice. The cognitive dissonance Daniel feels is understandable. Taking the spiritual out of the equation, to meditate on something is to consider it deeply, to mull it over in search of meaning or an explanation. It is, in this context, defined as:
Meditation is also known as spiritual contemplation in certain circles. Christian meditation, for example, is the process of focusing on specific thoughts in a structured way to better understand the will of God. This is often accompanied by, or focused on, some kind of documentation 1 and it is probably in this context that Marcus Aurelius' work later gained the name "Meditations" - he never titled his writings as they were merely a collection of personal musings, reminders and admonitions not intended for publication. Mindfulness meditation may be the fashionable variety but can be placed alongside another practice: meditating on a koan - a statement or question with no apparent meaning or answer, a "logical absurdity." While one may not be able to resolve the specific conundrum the process may lead to other realisations along the way. A mental workout as opposed to relaxation. Perhaps the only real difference between Stoic meditation and meditating on a koan is that we enter the latter practice forearmed with the subject of our contemplation whereas, with the former, we gain it as part of the process. This type of meditation is definitely in contrast to the mindfulness practice, where one aims to quieten the mind and exist in the moment, but they are separate acts with different intents. Taking the context from my previous post we could argue that mindfulness meditation is distraction from thoughts while Stoic meditation is immersion in them. I can appreciate that dismissing them might seem wasteful but, just as the Stoic might set aside time to examine their involuntary thoughts, so the mindfulness practitioner will assign a portion of their day to their practice. By extension, and by implication, not all moments need to be truly mindful and not all thoughts need to be examined. As I've said before, it's ironic that we hear the subconscious voice most when we seek stillness, but why can't we use it? Why we can't practice both? Why can't we choose based on our need or, perhaps, use them in conjunction? Quieten the mind in preparation, and then examine those thoughts that emerge. I think the only true incompatibility occurs when we try to combine them, seeing them as two approaches to the same practice.
often a passage from the bible but not necessarily so ↩